This study examines resistance against totalitarian propaganda in select movies produced in regions subjected to Soviet-imposed totalitarian system. From 1939 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Central-Eastern Europe has experienced two of the most devastating and genocidal political systems in the history of the humankind. Nazism was destroyed with the end of WWII, and met widespread condemnation. Sovietism, commonly known as Communism, survived WWII and the Soviet totalitarian empire rose to the position of the world's second superpower. Effective and organized Soviet propaganda generated a new convincing image of Sovietism as a harmless, friendly and progressive system. In this situation, the extremely important role of maintaining moral consciousness has fallen to the artistic world, specifically film. The scope of my thesis is to explore and analyze the responses to the Soviet totalitarianism in movies produced in European states of the Soviet bloc, between 1956 and 1989. My thesis aims to offer a critical reading of the chosen movies as well as their historical and political conditions. I point out how filmmakers articulated their resistance and analyze it in the context of national culture. The movies I chose to discuss express the reality of everyday life during the Soviet era. Their dissection reflects the mutual influence of history and art in general and in the Soviet bloc in particular. Hence, I offer a reading of the past expressed in the subjective vision of the cinematographic art. Movies not only reflect certain fragments of the reality, they also play an important role in constructing a collective memory. Discussing them from this angle leads to an understanding of the current perception of the past in those countries.

Jan Wallentin. Vägar till samadhi : en granskning av Robert K. C. Formans begrepp ”Pure Consciousness Event” (Roads to Samadhi : An Examination of Robert K. C. Forman’s Concept of ”Pure Consciousness Event”). Umeå University: Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious studies. Bachelor thesis. June 2021.Is Robert K. C. Forman’s concept of ”pure consciousness event” an example of a universal,mystical core experience? Is it possible to establish the neural correlates of this proposedexperience, and to induce it experimentally? These are the main questions of this study,which is a literature review drawing on recent scientific research from three fields: religious studies, philosophy of consciousness and neuroscience.The major findings are:The concept of ”pure consciousness event” (PCE) does seem like a tenable way ofgetting around the constructivist critique regarding universal, mystical core experiences.However, Forman’s original definition of PCE seems too strict. Forman defines PCE as ”a wakeful though contentless (non-intentional) consciousness”, but in the conventional wisdom of contemporary philosophy it is deemed impossible to be conscious without beingconscious about something. A conceivable solution would be to replace the term ”PCE” withThomas Metzinger’s less strict term ”Minimal Phenomenal Experience” (MPE), whichallows for some, though minimal, mental content during these kind of experiences.Regarding neural correlates, several recent studies suggest that a high level of activityin the brain’s default mode network (DMN) is correlated with a heightened sense of self-awareness. A low level of activity in the DMN is, vice versa, correlated with a sense of self-forgetting, as in the flow-experience. However, the activity-level of the DMN does not seem to fully explain the proposed existence of pure consciousness events, even in a less strict definition of this term.Methods used to induce experiences reminiscent of PCE include the white dreams ofTibetan dream yoga (yoga nidrā), states of deep meditation, and the intake of psychoactive substances, like psilocybin, DMT and LSD.Keyterms: Robert K. C. Forman, pure consciousness event, mysticism, samadhi, philosophy of consciousness,Thomas Metzinger, minimal phenomenal experience, drug induced ego dissolution.

Forman's Amadeus and the Role of Music in Film Narrative Vedoucí diplomové práce (supervisor): Zpracoval (author): Mgr. Tereza Havelková, Ph.D. Tomáš Bazika studijní obor (program): Praha, July 2020 Obecná teorie a dějiny umění a kultury Abstract The subject of this thesis is a study of the ways of using the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Miloš Forman's motion picture Amadeus. In my thesis, I focus on how Amadeus employs pre-existing classical compositions to create a new, largely fictional narrative based on the life and music of Mozart. I argue that instead of applying pre-existing pieces as film music, Amadeus conceives individual scenes as well as its overall filmic structure to accommodate the music's expressive qualities and biographical associations. I engage in a conversation with relevant existing scholarship to establish a theoretical framework for a systematic interpretation of the meaning-making roles of music in Amadeus. Drawing on Claudia Gorbman's concept of diegetic, non-diegetic and metadiegetic sound categories, I apply her taxonomy to Amadeus in order to show how not only the selection and placement of music but also its relation to the diegesis determine its impact on the narrative. I propose that in its treatment of Mozart's music, Amadeus reverses the traditional hierarchy of the...